A Cross-Sectional study of prevalence of hypertension among women of reproductive age in rural community of Amritsar-A community based study

Hypertension is a growing health problem worldwide. Globalization brought the lifestyle & behavioral modifications and in turn increased the prevalence of lifestyle disorders such as hypertension. According to ICMR report 2007–08, in India, the prevalence of hypertension was varying from 17–21% in all states with marginal rural-urban differences¹. At the same time, people of the rural communities were little affected with globalization. With the growing problem of hypertension worldwide there is concern that hypertension in rural population may also be on a rise. Based on this back ground the present study was conducted with an aim to estimate the prevalence of hypertension in childbearing age group of rural women. Methods: This was a cross sectional observational study conducted among 210 randomly selected consented rural women of the village Mallu-nangal, which is also a field practice area of Rural Health Centre of Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences & Research, Amritsar. A structured questionnaire was applied and blood pressures were measured with standardized digital blood pressure apparatus. Joint national committee-7 classification was used to estimate the prevalence of hypertension. Data was analyzed statistically and Chi-square & other correlation tests were used to test significance of results. Results: Out of the 210 participants, 173 (82.4%) had normal blood pressure, 44 (21%) had pre-hypertension, 34 (16.2%) participants stage I hypertension and 3 (1.4%) participants had stage II hypertension. Conclusions: Prevalence of hypertension and pre-hypertension was 17.6% and 21% respectively. Increasing age, high BMI, family history of hypertension, extra salt intake in food were the associated factors with hypertension.